On the eve of that event the U.S. Department of Energy's FermiLab, has published information that strongly hints at the existence of the Higgs boson, but stops short of providing explicit proof of its existence.

The data comes courtesy of Tevatron, a smaller accelerator 4 miles in circumference. Located on the FermiLab grounds just east of Batavia, Ill., Tevatron was long the world's most powerful accelerator. Its tests actually wrapped up last year, before the accelerator was permanently shut down, after the U.S. decided being a world leader in scientific research was no longer among its spending priorities.

But Tevatron's last hurrah has offered a tantalize tease of what lies ahead with the LHC. Taking 10 years worth of data involving approximately 500 trillion particle collisions, the FermiLab teams offered up signs of elusive particle.

The Tevatron's greatest legacy may be in finding the first evidence of the Higgs boson.
[Source: FermiLab]

States Rob Roser a spokesman for one of the two Tevatron experiments, "Our data strongly point toward the existence of the Higgs boson. But it will take results from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to establish a discovery."

The Tevatron was able to determine with relative accuracy that the particle it observed was a Higgs boson. But the 1-in-550 chance that the finding was a statistical fluke (99.8 percent level of certainty) was unacceptably high in the laser-precise world of particle physics -- hence the LHC's firepower is necessary.

The Higgs boson is the only fundamental subatomic particle predicted by the Standard Model that has yet to be observed.

But it is not mere novelty that drives researchers to observe this particular particle, one must understand the Standard Model of particle physics. This pillar of physics theory predicts that the Higgs boson gives rise to the so-called Higgs mechanism, a sort of "sticky field" that coats particles like a spoon dipping through a jar of honey. This "sticky" effect is thought to give protons, neutrons, and electrons -- the building blocks of matter that most of us are familiar with -- their mass.

Unfortunately the Higgs boson needs very high beam energy and luminosity in order to be provide enough mass and conditions favorable to a Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is predicted to be less that 1.4 TeV, if the Standard Model is correct.

If the Higgs boson or similar electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism are not found to give the subatomic particles their mass, then it will be an intriguing open season for new theories. But if the Higgs boson is observed, mankind will be content in knowing that we have quantified yet another facet of reality as we know it.

Nobel Prize laureate Leon Lederman popularized the hunt for the Higgs boson in his book "The God Particle", which chronicled his work hunting for the particle at FermiLab. Professor Lederman originally intended the title to be "The Goddamn Particle" -- an expression of his frustration at the difficult observing it. The title was subsequently shortened and the phrase "God particle" stuck as a colloquialism for the complex theoretical particle.

A Nobel prize winner nicknamed the Higgs boson the "God particle", a less cheeky shortening of his longer name for it -- the "Goddamn particle". [Image Source: Gandee Vasan/Getty Images]

The latest results from his lab do little to end the frustration, but they do provide indication that a Higgs boson's mass would be between 115 and 135 GeV -- about 130 times the mass of the proton.

Now all that remains is to see what exactly the LHC has gleaned within that band of energies.

Was the Tevatron's blip, unlikely as it may be, a mere stastical fluctuation, or was it the first observation of the God particle? The data from the LHC should offer evidence towards which possibility is true.

quote: into a system cranking out more useless bankers and stupid service jobs

At least bankers have degrees that qualify them for a variety of jobs, all of which are fundamentally good for society, like allocating savings in form of loans, advising people on retirement funds, etc.

I'd sooner point to liberal arts colleges cranking out legions of art history majors and wonder why the nation subsidizes those sorts of guys. They're useful for nothing in the real world beyond low level retail management, unless they're Picasso, and I'd rather fund legions of middling engineers and miss out on the occasional Picasso that doesn't manage to make a name for himself entirely on his own.

I wouldn't entirely blame the system. I think cultural pressures are a strong part of it too. The West prizes individuality - "follow your dreams," "do what you enjoy," "let your heart lead you." Consequently you end up with a lot of people training for things they like to do, not necessarily things which need doing.

Eastern (Confucian) culture prizes sacrifice for the betterment of your social group (family, company, neighborhood, nation). In the West it's subtly ridiculed - e.g. the guy who wanted to be a painter, but became a doctor because he knew he'd have to provide for his family. Or the businessman who works from 8am to 8pm, and gets home after his kids are in bed. The message being that the Western way is better.

I think many in the West use the extreme cases of Eastern behavior to justify their extreme cases of Western behavior. The truth is, either taken to the extreme is bad.

quote: At least bankers have degrees that qualify them for a variety of jobs, all of which are fundamentally good for society, like allocating savings in form of loans, advising people on retirement funds, etc.

The good ones do good, and they are far and few. Trust me, I know all too well. I've been around and in the industry my whole life and seen it from the inside. For every honest guy there are at least four or five waiting to stab them in the back and eat their children.

The banks aren't lending right now after receiving tons of money. It's not like they should be--they were lending irresponsibly before everything imploded due to irresponsible legislation forcing them to lend to everyone that had a pulse.

Liberal arts degrees are for the most part pretty useless. They teach stuff you can learn on your own if you really want to--and if you have the talent to make the degree work you probably don't need the degree in the first place.

Hence, we need more engineers and scientists. People with brains on their shoulders that can actually produce something of value with their hands. People that can lead everyone else to a better, brighter more industrialized future.

I agree with all of that, even the eat-their-children part. A few times I've been offered a chance to get in to the finance sector in different ways, but at the end of the day I always shy away; I'd rather be able to sleep at night.